The Notorious B.I.G.: Christopher Wallace's Rise, The East Coast vs. West Coast Beef, and His Unsolved Murder

Before he was the Notorious B.I.G., he was simply Christopher Wallace, a gifted kid growing up in Brooklyn with a massive dream and unparalleled talent. His fast rise to becoming one of the most influential rappers of all time was filled with fame, but it was tragically cut short in a murder that remains unsolved to this day. This episode tells the story of Biggie Smalls, including his hardships, hard choices, and the explosive East Coast vs. West Coast hip-hop rivalry that many believe led to his death. We remember the man and the ongoing mystery that still surrounds the circumstances of his killing.

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Before he was the notorious BIG. He was just Christopher Wallace, a kid growing up in Brooklyn with a dream and a whole lot of talent. His rise to becoming one of the most influential rappers of all time was fast and filled with fame, but it was also marked by hardship and hard choices. In the end, his life was cut short in a murder that remains unsolved to this day.

Join us as we tell the story and remember the mystery that still surrounds the death of Biggie Smalls.

Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a True Crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa. Hi, Mandy. How are you? I'm doing great. I just tripped myself up on the intro. I think I said Welcome to the Moms and Mystery podcast, and then. I don't know. It took my brain a second to catch up.

Just one mystery. Yeah. But it's a big mystery. Today's, it's one that is still a mystery. Things are going good. I [00:01:00] don't know if you asked me, but I'm gonna tell you things are going well. Good. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Gorgeous outside. We just got through Memorial Day weekend. Summer is officially here for us. And, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm excited to see what the summer has in store.

Way more positive than I actually feel inside. But did you believe it? You said it with all the confidence, uh, and optimism of a liar. Yes. Yeah, me too though. I'm really excited for the summer. You know, that's always my, that's my season. I wanna know what my color season is. If you seen a lot of that, like it was going crazy on TikTok and stuff, but I still, I still don't know what mine is.

I'm, maybe I never will. Maybe I'm a summer like you. But like, I don't think that's my color. Seasonality though. Personality. Yeah. I know what you're talking about though. The color analysis to find the colors that work best for your skin, hair, eye color combo. Um, all of that stuff. And mine has actually changed because I have changed my hair color.

And so one time I did the analysis and, and it actually is funny how true it is [00:02:00] because I used to wear certain colors that now I don't feel like look the same on me, or I just don't like the way they look on me anymore. I think because I changed my hair color, so, oh, a lot of stuff doesn't work for my hair.

Color now, but I don't know what my, my true color is. I feel like it would be something in fall or winter or something. Right? 'cause you can wear like the deeper colors. Like you, you're somebody that can wear a darker lip and it doesn't look crazy. I look psychotic if I do that. Yeah. It depends. I could look psychotic or sometimes if I do too dark lip, then I might look like I'm going for like an emo goth elvira.

Mm-hmm. Which could be, I mean, it could work for me, but that's not my personal style. So I sometimes I stay away from darker colors. For that reason. Oh, if anyone has a legitimate way to do that, I've been wanting to, and I can't tell, so I just need someone to personally tell me, unless it hurts my feelings.

If somebody wants to tell me, go ahead. All right, Melissa, are you ready to get into this week's story? Let's do it. Alright. Christopher Wallace was born on May 21st, 1972 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Jamaican [00:03:00] immigrants, but by the time he was two years old, his father had left the family.

Christopher was raised by his mom, Volta Wallace, who was a preschool teacher and a devout Christian who worked hard to give her only child a stable and structured life. The rest of the world would eventually come to know him as big or biggie, but to Volta, he was always just Christopher. Valletta enrolled him in Catholic schools, encouraged his creativity and nurtured his early love for reading, writing, and drawing.

She said he had big dreams of becoming a graphic designer, and at one point he was an honor roll student. Valletta saved up her money so that she could take Christopher to Jamaica to visit her family every year. Biggie really looked forward to those trips and especially adored his uncle Dave, who was a musician that actually introduced Biggie to live performance.

He and his uncle would wrap and sing together, which planted the seed for what would eventually become biggie's signature style. Unfortunately, [00:04:00] despite having a lot of support at home, biggie was drawn to the harsh realities of the streets. He grew up in a neighborhood of Brooklyn near Fulton Street that was known for flashy drug dealers who flaunt their money and status.

That lifestyle was tempting to so many of the kids in the area, and it was very common for young black teens to be lured into drug dealing with the promise of making some quick money. By 1988, at just 16 years old, biggie had started selling crack cocaine with his friend. They were making around $1,600 an ounce.

At the time, it didn't feel like a dangerous thing to be doing. It just felt like an easy opportunity. Before Long Biggie dropped outta school and when he turned 18, his mom kicked him outta the house because he refused to follow her rules. Volta later said that Biggie didn't need to sell drugs. He had everything he needed at home and more.

But for Biggie, the streets had already become part of his story. Biggie's, real passion and love for music didn't begin in the studio. [00:05:00] It actually started on the street with a bunch of kids huddled together, trading rhymes after school. He was still in elementary school when he started writing lyrics and his friends would actually bring their verses and they'd piece everything together into routines.

His first two hip hop tapes whereby Fat Boys and run DMC, and they lit the spark that turned into a full blown flame. But Biggie had more than just wrapping up his sleeve growing up. Up. One of Biggie's neighbors was actually Donald Harrison. He was a seasoned musician and talented jazz saxophonist. He'd worked with legends like Miles Davis, art Blakely and Lena Horne.

Donald taught Biggie how to really listen to music, not just to hear it. They formed a close bond and would go on little adventures around the city to places like the Museum of Modern Art, or just to catch a movie. Donald tried to guide Biggie toward the world of jazz, and although Biggie didn't end up taking that path, Donald's influence was undeniable.[00:06:00] 

Biggie's flow often carried that smooth offbeat timing of a jazz drummer. Biggie also found inspiration from his trip to Jamaica where he developed a love for reggae and to the surprise of many country music. He told his friends that he fell asleep listening to country, which they all found to be shocking.

But to Biggie, music was music and he soaked it all in. By the late 1980s, biggie had started playing around with recording. It started off as just something he liked to do for fun. He'd go to these basement studios and just start wrapping over different beats. But when he was 14 years old, biggie and his friends pooled their allowance money and got their parents' permission to record a demo at a studio called Funky Slice, and one of those very early tracks featured Biggie wrapping over a beat from Totos Africa.

I will. Always listen to the song Africa. If, if Biggie is on it. If, uh, Weezer does a cover. I just love that song. It's such a fun and recognizable [00:07:00] song. So in 19 92, 1 of his homemade tapes actually landed in the hands of the Source magazine, which was a major player at the time in the hip hop world. They featured Biggie in their column about unsigned talent and that really opened the first big door for him.

The spotlight led to a recording project with the source that was never officially released, but it helped Biggie get his foot in the industry. It wasn't long before he was appearing in songs with names like Mary j Blige. As he started gaining traction in the underground rap scene, biggie caught the attention of a young producer.

You may have heard of him. His name is Sean Combs. Mandy fan. Uh, no, I'm just kidding. I know you're, but you might know him as Puff Daddy p Diddy love for some reason in some of his arrest records. Uh, but commonly now we know him as Diddy from Diddy being on trial. And if you don't know a lot about Diddy, we did a special episode on him a few weeks ago with Ellen from the, I think Not podcast.

And I learned so much [00:08:00] that actually helped me a lot in this story. I don't know about you, but like same. Yes. A lot with the record deals that I would not have thought was as important or before I just didn't know, and like now I'm like, oh, kind of know little more of the story. Yeah. You wouldn't necessarily think of those as being such big connections and like huge, totally huge parts of these stories.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And Diddy was someone that really liked Biggie's sound. It was something totally new and his lyrics were raw and they had an edge to them, and Biggie was very soulful and he had these heavy r and b influences that made his track stand out from others that were in the hip hop industry at the time.

At this time, Diddy had recently launched his own label, bad Boy Entertainment. Again, go back and listen to that episode because it's not like you just launched this thing. Somebody helped him launch this, this thing, and he signed Biggie as one of his first major artists, and together Diddy and Biggie, recorded Party and Bull Blank, which as many of you will know, was a song that really made waves [00:09:00] at the time, rap music, which had largely been kept off mainstream radio, was suddenly getting airtime and biggie's.

Voice was reaching a whole new audience. As Biggie started gaining more and more popularity, those close to him kept a really close eye on the choices he was making. Friends and collaborators knew about his past and made it their mission to keep him focused on music and just keep him on the right path.

But there were still times when the ways of his old life threatened to pull him back in. In 1993, things started to really unravel when Diddy was fired from the label he was working for, which was Uptown Records, and there were some concerns that Biggie's album wouldn't be completed. Biggie was really stressed and saddened that this debut album may never see the light of day.

And he left New York and went to North Carolina with his girlfriend where he started slipping back into drug dealing to make ends meet that same year. He and his girlfriend welcomed a daughter named Tiana. When those in his [00:10:00] inner circle found out that he was falling back into his old habits, they reached out to Diddy.

Diddy managed to convince Biggie to return to New York and give his music career another shot. In 1994, biggie finally released his debut album called Ready to Die. The album sold over a million copies and turned him into a household name. It was gritty, kind of an autobiography, and was deeply introspective.

One of the central themes of this album was the weight of depression and suicidal thoughts. In an interview, biggie explained his mindset. At the time. He said If I was dead, I wouldn't have to worry about nothing. I could just lay up. Either I'd be in heaven or hell. I'd just be laying up chilling. He said that he wasn't actually talking about taking his own life, just that he felt like if he were dead he would be better off.

Listen, I know that Biggie was technically Gen X, but if that doesn't sound like a millennial, I don't know what, what, what does like that for sure. I've never [00:11:00] related to anything more in my life, honestly. I'm like, every TikTok I see is like, eh, I'm here, but I, you know, whatever. But I'm not, I'm not. I'm not feeling, not doing great, not right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Truly. I'm not thriving, I'm surviving. And that's basically what that feels like to me. Yes, absolutely. But despite the dark themes of the album, it was a huge success and it really cemented Biggie as a leading voice in hip hop. On November 1st, 1995, billboard named him Rap Artist of the Year.

Also, in 1995, biggie met fellow rapper Faith Evans at a photo shoot, and the two of them eventually got married. After that, biggie made a guest appearance on the sitcom. Martin explored launching his own record label and started dipping his toes into the fashion world. By 1997, he wasn't just a rising star, he truly was the star, and by this point he was now the crown jewel of Bad Boy records.

And we have so much more to get into after a quick break to hear a word from this week's [00:12:00] sponsors. Now back to the episode. So before the break, we were learning about Biggie's Big break and kind of how he first got into the hip hop scene and his collaboration with Sean Combs and kind of where he was before his life was.

Taken. And so while his career was taking off, his personal life was still catching up. In 1995, he was involved in a violent incident where he physically assaulted a man and was charged with robbery. He was acquitted of criminal charges, but later sued in civil court and ordered to pay the victim $25,000.

Then in 1996, a string of other arrests followed that summer. Biggie was picked up for marijuana and gun possession, and later that year he pleaded guilty to criminal mischief and fourth degree harassment. After attacking two people with a baseball bat, he ended up being sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

But just a few months later, he was arrested [00:13:00] again for marijuana possession. Despite his legal troubles, biggie's, music career continued to evolve. So did his mindset. His first album had been a brutally honest and raw portrait of a man that was trapped in a cycle of violence and despair. The themes were more grim and opened with this haunting skit of Diddy mourning, Biggie's death, which is something that that would later carry a chilling irony about it.

Biggie's second album went in another direction, and it was titled, life After Death Till Death Do Us Part. It was actually scheduled to be released on March 25th, 1997, and it would really bring everything full circle for him. This album replayed the opening from the first album with Diddy Mourning, Biggie's Death.

The final song of the album is called You're Nobody Till Somebody Kills You. I feel like rap songs back in that day, like they just. It was just what it was. The titles of the songs and everything in them go back to trapped in a [00:14:00] closet. What else was that about? Except are Kelly being trapped in a closet?

No, but it's true. They were more like, it seems like they were more literal and now you're, I mean. Why does the thong song immediately pop in my head? I know. It was just different. I can't give, it was different back then. Yeah. Oh gosh. So Biggie did say in an interview that this new album was really about something different.

It was about the new savor life he was trying to live at this time. He said he was ready to slow down and live a more grounded life, which is something he realized falling as. Serious car accident in 1996 that left him with a broken leg and a three month stay in the hospital. We hear about that kind of thing all the time, right?

That somebody's just on this reckless path and then something they have like a near death experience or something traumatic and they're like, okay, well life really is short and I need to figure this out. And that seemed to be where he was at this time. He really did use that time. He spent away from the chaos to evaluate everything.

But later that same year, Tupac's death had a [00:15:00] deep effect on Biggie. The rivalry between the east and West coast rap scenes had turned deadly and Biggie didn't wanna add any fuel to the fire. Just two days before his death, biggie told the LA wanted to live. His kids grow up their graduations and, and.

Biggie was someone that was really trying to implement change for the future that he wanted to have, but sadly, time just wasn't on his side. On the night of March 9th, 1997, biggie attended a party at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. It was a post-show celebration for the Soul Train Music Awards.

He and Diddy had already spent some time in LA and this was their last night in town. Biggie wanted to be there in hopes of easing the tensions between the east and West coast rappers. But those close to him were actually really worried. Many of his friends in LA thought it wasn't a safe place for Biggie in the midst of such a volatile time in hip hop.[00:16:00] 

They weren't even planning on going to this party originally, but they had changed their minds earlier that afternoon. Shortly after midnight, biggie left the party in a three car caravan. He was riding in the passenger seat of a dark blue, 1997 GMC Suburban, heading north on Fairfax Avenue near the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard with Biggie.

In the SUV were his driver, Gregory Young, and two of his close friends named James Lloyd and Damien Butler as the SUV sat at a red light, a dark Chevy Impala, SS, with no license plate on it, pulled up beside them. According to witnesses, the driver was a light skinned black man wearing a suit and bow tie, and he looked directly at Biggie before reaching across his body with his right hand and opening fire.

Seven shell casings were later found at the scene. Chaos erupted as the people in Biggie's, SUV and others in the convoy jumped outta the SUV before, quickly getting back inside and [00:17:00] speeding off towards the hospital. Witnesses reported seeing Biggie slumped over in his seat. Unresponsive. It was soon learned that Biggie had been shot four times.

Once in the left forearm, once in the back, once in the left thigh, and a fatal shot to the chest that tore through vital organs including his colon, liver, heart and left lung. Biggie was pronounced dead at Cedars Sinai Medical Center at 1:15 AM The medical examiner ruled his cause of death as a gunshot wound to the abdomen and chest, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Two projectiles were pulled from biggie's body and three were found lodged in the SUV. The passenger side door had five bullet holes in it. The weapon used to kill Biggie was a nine millimeter handgun, and the ammo was a rare type from a company called Gecko that manufactured the bullets. In Germany, there were only two dealers in the US who distributed this type of ammo, and only one of them was located in California.[00:18:00] 

As for the shooter, the descriptions were disturbingly specific, but still frustratingly vague. Some described a light-skinned black man, possibly Muslim, wearing a suit and tie. A name does appear in the FBI records, but it has been redacted. What is known is that he was a former member of the Crips and had since joined the Fruit of Islam, which was the paramilitary branch of the Nation of Islam.

Some witnesses recognized the man from other music industry events and said they'd seen him before, but yet no one was ever arrested. On the day of Biggie's funeral, his casket was carried through the streets of Brooklyn in a hearse. Thousands of fans came out and lined the sidewalks to cheer for Biggie as the hearse passed them by right from the beginning.

It was clear that biggie's murder wasn't just a random drive by. It looked like it targeted professional hit. Soon signs that pointed towards something disturbing started to emerge, and rumors began to fly, that there [00:19:00] could be some involvement from inside law enforcement. According to the FBI files, there were several off-duty police officers in the area on the night of the shooting.

Some that were just outside the party and some allegedly were within biggie's own entourage. One LAPD officer was reportedly driving the car behind biggie's, SUV, when the shots were fired, but that officer left the scene and never filed a report, which of course raises serious questions. And what was even more strange is that the party that Biggie was at that night had actually been shut down by the fire department for overcrowding, but no uniformed officers were present.

And multiple people said that it was odd. As investigators dug deeper, it was learned that at least one LAPD officer had ties to death row records. These officers were said to work as bodyguards for the label and were involved in selling drugs. The LAPD released a composite sketch of the suspected shooter on April 2nd, 1997.

He was [00:20:00] described as being a black male around five foot nine to six foot tall, roughly 200 pounds with a faded haircut and brown eyes. Also, he was likely to be in his early twenties. His appearance led some to believe that he might be a member of the Nation of Islam, but things got weird when there were actually two different sketches done and these two sketches didn't look like the same person at all.

One witness the FBI interviewed said that he saw a black man in a blue suit with a white shirt and blue tie lingering near Biggie and his group outside the party. The man eventually walked off and got into a car parked at the corner of Fairfax and Wilshire, possibly that same dark Chevy Impala involved in the shooting.

There was speculation that a second vehicle could be involved, a blue 1996 Bentley, but the owner of that vehicle was questioned and no evidence was found that tied into the crime. Four days after the murder, a sheriff's deputy told investigators that Biggie may have been killed over money. Owed to the South Side Compton Crips.[00:21:00] 

This claim alleged that Biggie had hired members of the gang to serve as bodyguards. Diddy denied the claim and said they only used off-duty police officers for security while in la. Others close to the situation were skeptical of the Crips theory as well. In June, police impounded a dark Chevy Impala that matched the description of the shooter's car.

It was found in the backyard of a home in Compton, covered and unused for months. The car was owned by a man named Dwayne Davis, who also went by Keith D. And if that name sounds familiar, it's probably because Dwayne is the uncle of Orlando Anderson, and that is one of the primary suspects in the murder of Tupac.

Wow. Yeah, so Dwayne's house had also been raided during the Mass Compton raids that happened after Tupac's death, and though he never spoke publicly about this vehicle, the Chevy Impala, his lawyer of course, said that he denied any involvement in biggie's murder. Throughout the investigation, people described Biggie as someone who had [00:22:00] no enemies.

But when it came to speaking with the police, many did choose to stay quiet. The allegation that police officers may have been involved had created this massive distrust, and some witnesses refused to cooperate with the local police, but some were willing to speak to the FBI. In 1998, a year after Biggie's murder, the LAPD released the names of two potential suspects, one of which actually was a former officer named David A.

Mack. David had been arrested the previous December, not for anything related to Biggie, but it was still pretty shocking. Nonetheless, considering he was a police officer, he was caught robbing a bank and making off with over $772,000. Wow. Yeah, so that case alone raised some concerns about corruption within the LAPD and suspicions ran even further.

When it came to Biggie's murder. It was learned that David allegedly had ties to the Bloods Gang and to Death Row records, and he also owned a black [00:23:00] Chevy Impala just like the one used in the shooting. However, authorities didn't believe that David had actually pulled the trigger himself. Instead, they theorized that he recruited his former college roommate, a man named Amir Mohammed.

Multiple sources state that Amir fit the profile of the primary suspect in those FBI files. The FBI believes that the shooter was a light-skinned black male, well-dressed, and likely Muslim. And Amir bore a striking resemblance to this description. He wore suits and he was a practicing Muslim, so when his name surfaced, police tried to track him down, but they were unable to locate him.

Meanwhile, media reports started coming out that claimed David Mack had a full blown Tupac shrine in his home, which. I guess I understand that level of fangirling. No, you don't to some degree. No, I don't. Don't, you're right. No, I don't. Um, but what's more interesting is that the FBI does confirm in their files that a search warrant was executed [00:24:00] at a suspect's house.

They don't say that it's David Max's house because the name is redacted. Um, but they say that they did. Execute a search warrant and find a shrine to Tupac, as well as, uh, nine millimeter guns and ammunition, which of course is the same caliber that was used in biggie's murder. So all of these clues played into this theory that they had, that biggie's murder was payback for Tupac's death six months earlier.

There were plenty of reasons to believe that revenge may have been a motive. Tupac and Biggie had been in a highly public feud, and at one point, Tupac allegedly said that if Biggie ever showed up in California that he'd be killed. So after Tupac's death, biggie recorded a track called going Back to Cali, which at the time seemed like fighting words, for lack of a better way to put it.

The night Biggie was shot in LA was the first time he had returned to California since Tupac's death. By 2002, five years after Biggie's murder, his mom had had enough of waiting on the criminal [00:25:00] justice system and she filed a civil suit accusing former LAPD Officer David Mack of orchestrating her son's murder.

The suit alleged that he had hired Amir Muhammad to carry out this hit. This lawsuit brought renewed attention to the LAPD's handling of the case, as well as the connections between law enforcement and the world. Biggie had been navigating it also brought new witness information to light. Back in April of 1998, just a little over a year after the murder, police had shown six photo lineups to three different witnesses, and one of them identified two of the men in the lineup as people he had seen outside the party that night.

One of those men identified. Was David. Another key voice came from someone close to Biggie Circle, and that was Diddy's bodyguard Eugene deal. Eugene said that he saw Amir outside the party on the night Biggie was shot, and that the man seemed to be watching them closely as if he was scoping them out later, the man walked off in the [00:26:00] same direction the Impala would later come from.

Eugene also said that days earlier when they were at the Soul Train Awards, the group had gotten into a minor altercation with members of the Nation of Islam. The timing, of course, was suspicious, but the police never asked Eugene to identify the man he saw. In a different documentary, it was claimed that Eugene actually did participate in a photo lineup and identified Amir, but that didn't happen until 2001 after Amir's face had already appeared in news reports and in documentaries, which could have influenced the ID in earlier lineups, Eugene did not pick Amir.

Despite all the speculation and accusations, Amir Mohammad was never questioned by police, not even once. So when Vita filed her lawsuit, Amir actually sat for a deposition and even offered to take a polygraph test to clear his name. He has consistently denied having any involvement in the murder. FBI files suggest that investigators believed they had a strong suspect in the case.[00:27:00] 

One file from 2003 shows that the FBI's San Diego office was asked to conduct surveillance on this suspect. The request even mentioned mosques, which just reinforced the theory that the shooter was a member of the Nation of Islam. Surveillance took place over the course of several months, from October to December of 2003.

On October 13th, 2004, FBI Agents traveled from LA to New York to interview a key witness, but again, that person's identity is redacted in the files. We know that the person gave agents the name of someone they claimed, was directly involved in biggie's murder, and said this person knew everything about what happened that night.

As the civil lawsuit moved forward, a new name emerged. This was a man named Michael Robinson, or as he was better known, psycho Mike. I feel like that name again, like the songs before are too on the nose. Like Big is a big guy. I don't think Psycho Mike was like the librarian front. [00:28:00] Mm-hmm. You know, like your next door neighbor.

I'm sure it was, uh, fitting and spot on, right? So he gave a deposition where he claimed to have worked as a paid informant for multiple agencies, including the Sheriff's department, FBI, the DEA, long Beach Police, and even anti-terrorist groups. But his credibility was questioned from the start. Back in July of 1997, Mike was in jail for a parole violation.

When he reached out to the LAPD, he said he had some inside information about biggie's murder and offered to trade that information for an early release, and an officer agreed to visit him in jail during their meeting. Psycho Mike claimed that Biggie's murder was orchestrated by Suge Knight, who was the head of Death Row records.

He claimed the shooter had a Middle Eastern sounding name and suggested it may have been something like Amir or Kir or Abraham, and that this person was affiliated with the Nation of Islam. Mike also said the man worked as a bodyguard for a drug dealer named Bay Gardner and was known to hang out [00:29:00] near 83rd Street in Compton.

But there were problems with the story, starting with the fact that there is no 83rd street in Compton. So immediately it, it makes you question what else is true or not true, isn't it? Location, location, location. Right? I feel like even in stories like this, it should be. Yeah, so in addition to there being no 83rd Street in Compton, the police also couldn't find any evidence that a drug dealer named Bay or Barry Gardner ever existed in that area.

But still, Mike's story influenced the investigation. At the time, the police had already been looking into David Mack, and a week after he was arrested for the bank robbery. His old college roommate Amir, paid him a visit in prison, which under normal circumstances wouldn't really raise the alarm. But since Psycho Mike claimed the killer was someone with a similar name, police started looking into Amir more closely.

We have more to get into after one last break to hear a word from this week's sponsors. And now back to the [00:30:00] episode. So before the break, we were looking at all the different places police were looking at from jailhouse informants to this guy Amir, to people that were on the inside and the police department.

And we still don't have a very clear picture of who could have been the one to either kill Biggie or to put a hit out on him. But back to that meeting with Amir at the prison. So the prison logs showed that Amir visited David Mack under a fake name and social security number, which investigators wondered whether he had done to conceal his real identity.

I don't know of another reason that you would do that. I know, but Amir later explained that he used his real birthdate and address, but he altered part of his identity to prevent identity theft, which you know. In 2025, I get it. I don't know that I get it back in 1997 or 1998, which it sounds crazy, but of course at the time it wasn't unheard of for people to do this.

But ultimately it was Mike's unverified [00:31:00] jailhouse tip that had first directed police to look into a mirror. But as things progressed, the holes in Mike's story and the lack of hard evidence actually against Amir would cast any serious doubt on their theory. Police ended up creating a photo lineup and showing it to Psycho Mike, who pointed to Amir and identified him as the man who killed Biggie.

This identification became a cornerstone in Detective Russell Poole's theory that should Knight had orchestrated the murder by hiring David Mack, who in turn hired his friend Amir, to carry out the hit. Detective Poole believed that Suge had been behind both Tupac and Biggie's murders. The theory gained traction in certain circles, but not everyone was convinced, especially because Amir didn't actually match the profile of the suspected shooter.

But Detective Poole continued pushing the narrative anyway, so eventually the department pulled him off the case, which he personally took his confirmation that the LAPD was trying to cover something up in [00:32:00] 1999. Pool resigned from the force entirely. During a later deposition, psycho, Mike admitted under oath that his IG of AM Mirror was a complete fabrication and that everything he told police was a lie.

He admitted to suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and said that he had never even seen Amir before the photo lineup. He just picked someone at random, and this wasn't the first time that Mike had got caught lying. In a 2002 article published in the LA Times, it was alleged in great detail that Biggie killed Tupac.

And this information all came from an inside informant. Mandy, do you wanna guess who it was? 'cause it wasn't niceness Mike. It wasn't Never tell why Mike been psycho Mike. It was definitely psycho Mike. So as you might imagine, this article got a lot of flack and the author who was actually a Pulitzer Prize winner, was criticized for spreading what most people believe was misinformation.

Many people came forward to immediately dispute this claim and said that they were actually with Biggie in New Jersey watching the [00:33:00] Mike Tyson fight on TV the night Tupac was shot in Las Vegas. Even Biggie's mom pointed out that he was so famous that if he had been in Vegas, his present wouldn't have gone unnoticed.

And he is a big guy. He's going to be rolling with several people, like there's no way. But eventually Mike admitted that that story was a lie too, and the LA Times was forced to issue a public apology. Oof. In the summer of 2005, the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Volta finally went to trial. By the time it reached the courtroom, both David and Amir had been dismissed from the case, and the only remaining defendant was the LAPD as a whole.

During the trial, several explosive claims were aired, some of which could have dramatically changed the case if they had been backed by stronger evidence. One of the most notable testimonies came from a retired LAPD officer named Fred Miller, who told the court that a former cellmate of Suge Knight had come forward and claim that Suge confessed to orchestrating biggie's murder.

In a previous deposition, [00:34:00] a cellmate, possibly the same one said that as soon as Suge landed in prison, he started bragging that he was behind Biggie's killing. And according to that witness, Suge had named David Mack and Amir Muhammad as their hit men, and said that Suge had help from two other men as well.

Those men were Reggie Wright Jr. And Big Skies. The informant claimed the group had used two women to infiltrate bad boy entertainment in New York and then feed information back to death row records, including intel about biggie's, movements, and when he might be the most vulnerable. Suge never revealed who the actual shooter was, but the motive was allegedly money.

The informant said he gave this information and the names of David Mack and Amir Mohammed to the LAPD, but that his tip was brushed aside. He ultimately was not called to testify at the trial because prosecutors feared that his criminal record would hurt the case more than help it. I feel like that's just such big information that Yeah, unless it was like he went to prison only for lying [00:35:00] every day.

Of his life, like, right. This is such a big case, and that's such big information that, I don't know, it seems kind of crazy to me. They wouldn't at least try. I agree. Another key witness in the trial was Kevin Hackey. This is Tupac's former bodyguard. He testified that he saw David Mack interacting with Suge Knight and other death row affiliates at multiple events and social functions, which confirmed claims that David Mack had ties to the label.

But just four days into the trial, things came to a halt as a mistrial was declared. The reason was that Vita's legal team had dropped this big bombshell. They announced that the LAPD had just turned over information from a prison informant that implicated David Mack and another LAPD officer named Raphael Perez.

Oh my gosh. This new tip claimed that Raphael had confessed to having involvement. And if Raphael Perez also sounds like a familiar name to you, it might be because he was one of the central figures in what came to be [00:36:00] known as the Rampart scandal, which is one of the worst corruption scandals in LAPD history.

He had a long record of his own, including a time where he and another officer framed and shot an unarmed man. In 1996, that man was left paralyzed and was sentenced to 23 years. Uh, based on. Rafael's false testimony. Oh my gosh, awful. So two years later, Rafael was caught stealing over two kilos of cocaine from the LAPD's own evidence room, and he bounced in and outta state in federal prison for both these crimes until 2005, which is the same year that Biggie's trial went to court.

With these new allegations involving yet another person, the judge had no choice but to declare a mistrial. After the mistrial, the judge ordered over 200 documents to be seized from the LAPD. The department's robbery homicide division was completely locked down as investigators combed through files looking for.

Anything that had been withheld from Valletta and her legal team, and they actually found something. One of the [00:37:00] discoveries was a transcript from the prison informant who allegedly implicated both David and Raphael in biggie's murder. This document had never been shared with Vita's attorneys, which of course was required by law.

They found the letter in a detective's desk drawer who claimed. I had simply forgotten about it. I hate when convenient. I hate when the clues to a, you know, huge national murder mystery, or just in my desk, and I forgot 'em. Whoopsy, doozy. And luckily, it's not just us that are skeptical, the judge also didn't buy it.

And in a scathing ruling, the judge declared that the LAPD had withheld critical evidence from Valletta and the public, and ruled that the LAPD's actions had compromised the trial's fairness. The ruling gave TTA the right to bring the case back to court with the newly uncovered evidence. The judge also ordered that the Wallace family be reimbursed for their legal fees and court costs.

TTA publicly stated that she did plan to refile the lawsuit. On March 29th, 2006, the Los Angeles [00:38:00] City counsel approve the judge's order and agreed to pay biggie's family. $1.1 million. This wasn't for the murder itself, but for the mistakes made by the LAPD during the civil trial, as well as the mishandled evidence, the secrecy, and the failure to provide a fair legal process.

In 2005, the FBA officially closed its investigation into the murder of Christopher Wallace. For a year and a half agents had pursued the theory that Suge Knight ordered the hit, and it was carried out by former LAPD Officer David Mack. But in the end, the bureau walked away without filing charges, and the case went cold once again.

The following year in 2006, the LAPD announced a new task force made up of senior detectives to take a fresh look at biggie's murder. It seemed promising at the time, but aside from that initial announcement, little had been shared publicly about what. If anything, the task force actually uncovered in 2010.

The wrongful death lawsuit against the LAPD was officially dismissed without [00:39:00] prejudice. According to the New York Times, Biggie's, family requested dismissal, believing that the ongoing lawsuit could interfere with the murder investigation, and they hope that taking a step back would help the case move forward.

Though the investigation stalled TTA Wallace never let her son's legacy be defined solely by his death. In October of 19 97, 7 months after the shooting, she established the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation, whose mission is to provide educational resources to underfunded schools. In 2003, she said in an interview, I would want the legacy of Christopher to be that of love, of art and love of people, to establish a sharing environment and focus on others in ourselves.

And let his thoughts on music live forever In 2020, biggie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As of 2021, he sold over 30 million albums worldwide and his influence is still felt in hip hop today. Okay, Mandy, years, this has been, uh, like. Something you hear about, [00:40:00] you hear about Tupac, you hear about Biggie, all this stuff that we didn't, I didn't know all this information on.

Where do you land on what you think happened? Do you think this was a result of this feud with Tupac? Do you think this was something totally separate? I could definitely believe that it was related. So I, when this story actually happened, I was. Still pretty young. I mean, I wasn't like a baby or anything, but I was young enough that I wasn't really like plugged into like music and like pop culture Sure.

Or anything like that at the time. And so I don't really even have a lot of memories of like when it happened though, it wasn't really, um, a story that I. Kind of heard, not like other stories. You hear crime stories like JonBenet Ramsey or OJ Simpson. Those are ones of course, as a young age. I always remembered more about them.

Yeah. But this one is one. I just didn't really know a ton about the actual details of it, but I feel like it was something that happened as a result of the time that it was in, that it happened in, and just like the different types of. Things that were going on in the world at the time. Yeah, absolutely. I would [00:41:00] agree.

And I remember when more stuff came out with Suge Knight more recently, which I'm looking at these years and I'm like, had to have been after that. But I think time just goes by and so much more about the, you know, theory that he had something to do with it. But my gosh, with, uh. With good old Sean Love combs right now.

I wouldn't put anything past him at the point, at this point. Like, who knows? I'm not. Yeah, I don't know. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. That's coming from my brain, of course. And I just think that man's evil and it wouldn't surprise me anything he did at this point. Um, so seeing his name in any story, now it's like, oh.

Okay. Well, yeah. Could you be part of what happens? Well, even in one part of this story, when it was talking about, even just the question about who, uh, who they hired for bodyguards, were they hiring gang members or were they hiring police officers? And of course did, he says, oh, we only would hire police officers.

But I'm like, I don't know if I believe you. Did he? I know, I know. Well, and if he did hire them, I know they would've been like. Uh, not the police officers. You wanna call it an emergency, right. The ones [00:42:00] that are being bought out by other people and stuff. Exactly. So yeah, I, I agree. I don't know, I, I'm, I'm interested, I'm also interested in the theory.

This is back to Tupac though, that he's not dead. I'm not saying that's true, but you hear that one a lot. Oh, that is a popular one. Yeah. And there was, even back to Diddy, the guy who claimed that, I can't remember his name right now, wish I had it up. Eight years ago that he had been a sex slave of DID and CASSIEs, and said, you know, he says all this crazy stuff and people did not believe it.

And then. It comes up in this trial recently that Cassie like agrees that that was a name of somebody that was involved in all this. But during that interview he also said that Tupac was alive and he lived in Cuba. And so now I'm like back on that train of thinking, ah, there's, it's all very fascinating and really sad because of course people lost their lives.

Of course. Yeah. And all of that. But it is one of those interesting things. You wonder if we'll ever really know the whole story. Yeah. And maybe we won't, but I still [00:43:00] feel like with a case like this, I feel like it's one of those things that something could come out like so many years later. Oh, oh, yeah.

Like at any point someone could come forward and like actually know more information. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Or a lot of people do deathbed confessions or you know, because, because on, and it sounds horrible to say, but on some level. People who do this kind of thing, they want to be known for it, right? Mm-hmm. So if somebody is out there, if the person who, uh, shot Biggie is still alive.

My guess is that they're gonna want to reveal themselves before they pass away. So they don't wanna be punished for it, but they want people know it was them. Yeah, exactly. I agree with you. So I think it's possible that we could find out, but it might still be a long time. Yeah. Well that was really interesting though.

Yeah, definitely. All right. Thank you guys so much for joining us and listening to this episode. Uh, we will be back next Thursday with a new story. I don't think it will be another. Story, story like this, but we'll be doing something else. We'll be doing something and until then on Tuesday, we'll have a brand [00:44:00] new regular episode story you can listen to.

And thank you guys so much. If you have a second to, uh, rate and and subscribe and comment and whatever else, that would be great. It always helps the show to grow. And you can find extra bonus episodes on patreon.com/moms and Mysteries podcast. Lots of fun stuff over there as well. Have a great week. Bye bye.